Nuts Are Good: Buffalo Peanuts

Fun Flavored Roasted Peanuts

CAPSULE REPORT: Nuts Are Good makes sugar-roasted peanuts in seven flavors, the most outstanding being the hot, spicy Buffalo Peanuts. For those who don’t like it hot, Vanilla Rum and other flavors await. In addition to snacking from the bag, they can be tossed into salads and onto ice cream and other desserts. The line is dry roasted and certified kosher.

Nuts are Good! has been roasting nuts for about 20 years, starting as a tiny retail roaster in a mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, two brothers, Jonny and Danny Levy, began roasting almonds, specializing in cinnamon and vanilla, a twist on the classic pralines you can buy on the street in Paris, large U.S. cities and perhaps your town. Today, they’re the number one wholesale roaster of cinnamon almonds in the U.S.

One day, inspired by Buffalo wings, the brothers went to work and invented...not the Buffalo almond. Buffalo flavors work better with peanuts—and the mildly-spicy nuts have become one of the company’s best sellers.

The company is called Nuts Are Good! because...nuts are good for you, protein-rich and full of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamins and minerals. They’re just high in calories, so you can’t eat them by the bowlful. Peanuts in particular have copper, folate, manganese, oleic acid (the same fat found in olive oil), niacin, resveratrol (the phenolic antioxidant also found in red grapes and red wine) and vitamin E.

All of the products are dry roasted, as opposed to oil roasted, in large kettle batches.

Flavors

All of the peanuts are sugar-coated and flavored. And yes, the Buffalo Peanuts are the star of the line, flavored with vinegar, cayenne pepper, salt and garlic. You can taste all of the flavors, and they really are a new and different take on flavored nuts. We enjoyed several bags and would eat whatever is put in front of us. Your guests who like things on the slightly-spicy side will devour them too.

The rest of the flavors, fruits, are pleasant, but don’t impress in the same way. The nuts are very fresh, and they are thankfully not heavily candied as are many brands (and street vendor nuts). Vanilla Rum is our favorite of this group. The Apple Cinnamon and Margarita had subtle hints of flavor, Raspberry was assertive (but it’s an unusual marriage, more like kids’ candy), and coconut lacked the authentic type of coconut flavor one would hope for—perhaps it’s just not possible to achieve with the type of ingredient one must use to flavor nuts.

So, if you want to send a gift to kids, the Variety Pack may well please. The sophisticated palate—and folks who just like beer and a barbecue—will go for the nifty Buffalo Peanuts.